Venezuelan former political prisoners of the regime of socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and families of slain protesters recounted their harrowing experiences to the Colombian outlet NTN24 this week following Maduro’s arrest in a U.S. operation.
NTN24 interviewed Villca Fernández, a former Venezuelan student leader who was unjustly detained by the Maduro regime in 2016 after he was accused in Venezuelan state-owned media of allegedly conspiring to “destabilize” the authoritarian regime. Fernández was released and traveled to Peru in 2018 with he help of the Peruvian government.
Fernández recounted the gruesome torture and conditions that Venezuelan political prisoners are subjected to at el Helicoide (“the Helix”), the Venezuelan socialist regime’s largest and most infamous torture center in Caracas. He compared the “hell” of the Helicoide with the conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where deposed socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro is presently detained after he and his wife Cilia Flores were captured through a U.S. law enforcement action in Caracas on Saturday.
The activist stressed during the interview that Maduro is not presently going through “hell,” but rather, through “justice,” emphasizing that, unlike the Venezuelan regime, Maduro is being tried by the American justice system, where he will have the right to defend himself, due process, and will have his human rights respected.
“There’s no comparison. Hell — that’s how they welcomed me at the Helicoide when I arrived — ‘Welcome to Hell.’ And indeed, if it’s not like hell, it must be very close to what hell is like,” Fernández said.
“Hell is a place where they hang you, handcuff you, and hang you for weeks, days, nights, and days without being able to feed yourself, without being able to drink any kind of liquid, without respect and without any guarantee of your rights,” he continued.
“Hell is having electricity run through your testicles, having electricity run through your breasts, having an airbag put on you and tear gas sprayed at you, and being beaten,” he further recounted. “Hell is being grabbed by hundreds of officials and beaten naked all over your body. Hell is being locked up in a dungeon called ‘El Tigrito’ [“The Little Tiger”] where no air, no sunlight, no electric light, no natural light enters. Where the walls sweat from the heat inside.”
Fernández pointed to Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab, describing him as the “poet of torture,” referring to Saab’s origins as the “Poet of the Revolution,” a titled Hugo anointed him with at the start of his rule in 1999.
“Tarek William Saab, who whitewashes the regime and is responsible for fabricating all the cases against most of the political prisoners in the country because he represents the prosecutor’s office and carries out the orders given to him by Delcy [Rodríguez], Diosdado [Cabello], Padrino [López], and Maduro,” he said.
Maduro and Flores are presently undergoing pre-trial proceedings in a New York court on narco-terrorism charges. On Monday, the deposed dictator pleaded not guilty to the charges. NTN24 reported that a group of victims of the Maduro regime have filed a formal complaint at a Brooklyn court asking to have Maduro tried for torture and crimes against humanity.
A copy of the complaint reviewed by the news channel reportedly states that Venezuela “designed, implemented, and maintained a state system that institutionalized the practice of torture,” identifying Nicolás Maduro as “its principal political and hierarchical authority.”
NTN24 also spoke with Israel Cañizales, father of Armando Cañizales, an 18-year-old musician killed in May 2017 during a protest against the socialist regime in Caracas. Cañizales, presently living in Spain, recounted that Maduro would always appear on some stage dancing while regime officials brutally repressed and murdered protesters in the country.
“At the time my son was killed, he [Maduro] was dancing in Miraflores and broadcasting it live,” the father said. “So, even though it evokes different feelings and mixed emotions in us, it’s hard to celebrate fully because it reminds us of everything that happened to us.”
Cañizales said that Maduro’s capture, while it is a first step, it does not repair the damage, but it is a “beginning” of what can be included at courts in addition to the narco-terrorism charges and called for Maduro to be tried for crimes against humanity, torture, murder, persecution, and harassment of free speech based on documentation and reports presented by international organizations, such as the several reports issued by the The United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela.
“We are not seeking revenge, we are seeking justice,” Cañizales said.
“I cannot stop thinking about the image of my son, who did not deserve this, nor did any of the other young people who were murdered,” he concluded.
The Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional published a report on Monday detailing the “legacy” of Maduro’s rule in Venezuela. The report presents a summary of the gross human rights violations committed by the Maduro regime, detailing that over 300 people were killed in anti-regime protests during Maduro’s rule (2013-2025), with 2017 standing as the “bloodiest” year, with anywhere between 127 and 157 reported deaths, followed by 2019, where 67 people died protesting against the socialist regime.
El Nacional said that over 18,000 people were detained by regime security forces since 2014, noting that Maduro used prisons to silence dissidents, activists, and citizens who exercised their right to free speech. The newspaper highlighted that as of 2025 at least 863 persons remain detained on political charges at a regime prison, 17 of whom presumably died under state custody, with many of the deaths attributed to lack of adequate medical attention and unclear circumstances.
The newspaper stressed that the Venezuelan migrant crisis is one of the most devastating effects of the Maduro era, with roughly 7.9 million Venezuelans having fled from socialism, an amount that translates to 30 percent of Venezuela’s entire population in 2013, the year Maduro succeeded Hugo Chávez.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.